Coasting with Culture through New Zealand and Australia!

Part 23, Victoria Parliment

11/21/2016 - For the last full day I had in Melbourne, I made a visit to Victoria's Parliment House. The members of this parliment would be the ones who establish laws for the State of Victoria, and it operates in a similar fashion to the national parliment of Australia.

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One select days when parliment is not in session, they offer tours of the building, taking you into the chambers and explaining where the different members and people of significant positions would sit during the parlimentary sessions.

The tour begins with a visit to the main central hall where press conferences, banquets and receptions are held. Inside of this room is a

statue of Queen Victoria, for whom the state was named after, along with portraits of the former premiers of Victoria's Parliment, or the equivilent of the Prime Minister at the state level (if the Prime Minister is similar to the President, then the Premier would be similar to a Governor in the U.S.)

The first chamber they take us into is the Legislative Assembly, which is the lower house of parliment. One of the neat things about this tour was that we were able to sit in the seats that the members of parliment also sit in, unlike other government buildings where they would

never dream of letting visitros into the chamber like this. This chamber has the color green as it sybolizes more of the "common man", and is similar to the house of commons in British Parliment. If comparing this to congress in the United States, this would be the equivalent of

the House of Representatives. According to our tour guide, this is where the discussions tend to be more lively and the arguements

between members more heated.

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We then had the opportunity to visit the parlimentary library, which is utilized by the members of parliment for their research when

discussing the issues in their sessions, and it has several historic artifacts inside of it on display.

From the library, we then went to the Legislative Council, or the upper house of parliment. The red color in this chamber is that of royalty.

This is symbolized by the crown that is on display at the end of the chamber above the chamber president's desk. In the British Parliment​​, this would be refered to as the House of Lords. The congressional equivalent for the United States would be the Senate.

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Of course, no good tour is complete without a visit to the Parliment gift shop!

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It was fascinating to come and learn more about how the government of another country works, and to find some similarities between theirs and ours. I did come back for a little bit before my flight back to Auckland the next day to watch a little bit of the parlimentary session, and

it was interesting to see the differences between the two chambers, although it wasn't quite as lively as I had anticipated, but many of the members were not present, or a few would pop in and out durings different times of the session.

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And this brings an end to the visit to Melbourne, The next day was the return back to Auckland to prepare for the long journey home.